The Bear Who Couldn't Sleep

Barnaby was a bear. A big, fluffy, perfectly round sort of bear with fur the color of toasted marshmallows and a nose like a shiny black button. He had a wonderful cave at the top of Clover Hill, with a bed made of the softest moss and the crunchiest autumn leaves.

And he could not, for the life of him, fall asleep.

Every other bear in the forest had been snoring since October. His best friend, Hazel, had yawned one enormous yawn on the first chilly night, curled into a ball, and that was that. His neighbor, Old Douglas, had been asleep since September, which Barnaby thought was just showing off.

But Barnaby? Barnaby was wide awake.

He'd tried everything.

He'd counted sheep. He'd counted a lot of sheep. He'd counted so many sheep that the imaginary sheep started complaining. "Could you count someone else?" said sheep number four thousand and twelve. "My legs are tired from jumping over that fence."

He'd tried warm milk, but bears don't really have cups, so that was mostly just a mess.

He'd tried reading boring books, but the only book in his cave was The Very Exciting Adventures of Captain Thunderpaw, and that just made him want to stay up even more.

November came, and Barnaby was still awake. He wandered through the quiet forest, his big feet crunching on frozen leaves. The trees were bare and gray. The sky was white as paper. Everything felt empty.

"Hello?" he called out.

Nobody answered. Because everyone was asleep.

December arrived with snow. Big, fat, puffy snowflakes that landed on Barnaby's nose and made him sneeze. He'd never actually seen December before. Bears always slept right through it.

"Huh," said Barnaby, looking around. "So this is what it looks like."

The forest was covered in a blanket of white so bright it made him squint. Icicles hung from branches like glass chandeliers. A frozen creek sparkled in the pale sunlight.

It was beautiful. But it was also very, very lonely.

Barnaby sighed a sigh so big it made a cloud in the cold air.

Then he heard a sound.

Tap, tap, tap.

A small red bird was pecking at a pinecone in the snow. She looked up at Barnaby with tiny, bright eyes.

"You're a bear," she said.

"I am," said Barnaby.

"Bears are supposed to be asleep."

"I know," said Barnaby, and he sat down in the snow with a thump that shook the icicles off a nearby bush.

The bird tilted her head. "Well," she said, "since you're up, my name is Pip."

And just like that, Barnaby had a friend for winter.

Pip showed Barnaby things he'd never seen before. She showed him how the river froze in swirly patterns, like someone had drawn on it with a white crayon. She showed him the way snowflakes looked up close — each one different, each one impossible and perfect. She showed him which berries still grew in winter, the bright red ones that tasted like tiny sour explosions.

"These are terrible," said Barnaby, eating twelve more.

January was the coldest month. The wind howled through the trees at night, and Barnaby huddled in his cave, wrapping himself in his own fluffy arms. He could hear the other bears snoring through the walls of their caves — deep, rumbling, peaceful snores.

"Why can't I do that?" Barnaby whispered to himself.

Some nights he felt like the only creature in the whole world who was awake. Like the moon had hung itself in the sky just for him and nobody else.

He didn't like that feeling.

But every morning, Pip would appear at the entrance of his cave.

"Come on, Barnaby! The pond froze thick enough to slide on!"

And Barnaby would drag himself up, shake the frost off his fur, and follow her outside. Sliding on the pond was terrifying for a bear of his size. The first time, his legs went in four different directions, and he spun in a slow circle while Pip laughed so hard she fell off her branch.

"You look like a very confused table!" she wheezed.

"I am TRYING," said Barnaby, with great dignity, right before he fell on his bottom.

But he got better. Not good, exactly. But better. And the sound of Pip laughing made the cold feel a little less cold.

In February, something changed.

One morning, Barnaby stepped outside and noticed the air smelled different. Not warm, exactly. But softer. Like the sky was taking a gentler kind of breath. A few blades of green poked up through the snow near the entrance to his cave.

"Pip," he said, "what's that?"

"Snowdrops," said Pip. "They're the first flowers. They mean spring is almost here."

Barnaby stared at the tiny white flowers pushing up through the frozen ground. They were so small. So stubborn. Growing even when everything around them was still cold and hard.

"I've never seen these before either," he said quietly.

"Most bears haven't," said Pip.

That afternoon, Barnaby heard a sound from Hazel's cave. A groan. A yawn. A long, loud, magnificent stretch.

Hazel appeared at the mouth of her cave, blinking in the pale sunlight. She had leaves stuck to her face and her fur was matted on one side.

"Mornin'," she mumbled. "What'd I miss?"

Barnaby looked at Hazel. Then he looked at Pip. Then he looked at the snowdrops, and the sparkling creek, and the icicles catching the light, and the pond where he'd learned to slide — badly — and the bright red terrible berries, and the snowflakes that were each different and impossible and perfect.

"Kind of a lot, actually," said Barnaby, and a huge grin spread across his big bear face.

One by one, the other bears woke up. Old Douglas emerged last, yawning tremendously, and said, "Ah, another winter survived by sleeping right through it. Didn't miss a thing!"

Barnaby opened his mouth to say something, then closed it. He just smiled.

That night, Barnaby lay in his moss bed. The cave was getting warmer. Outside, he could hear the first tiny drips of snow melting off the branches. The forest was waking up — owls hooting, foxes padding through the underbrush, the creek starting to gurgle and flow again.

And Barnaby felt his eyes getting heavy.

Now? he thought. Really? NOW you want to sleep?

His eyelids drooped. His big body sank into the moss. A yawn the size of a watermelon escaped from his mouth.

"Oh, you have got to be kidding me," he mumbled.

But he was smiling as he said it.

Pip landed softly on the ledge at the entrance of his cave. She tilted her head, watching her friend finally, finally drifting off.

"Goodnight, Barnaby," she whispered.

But Barnaby was already asleep.

And outside, the snowdrops kept blooming, small and stubborn, reaching up toward the light — just like they did every year, whether anyone was awake to see them or not.

But this year, someone had been.